An assistant teacher of a government school and one of the lead faces of the Kurmi movement in West Bengal, who was transferred overnight, has now been arrested by the state police on charges of his involvement in attack on the convoy Trinamool Congress' national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
Although the state police are tight-lipped over the time of Rajesh Mahato's arrest, sources confirmed that Mahato, along with seven others, will be produced at a lower district court on Sunday only.
The transfer and arrest of Mahato, comes amid two developments over the attack on Abhishek Banerjee's convoy. On Saturday only, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, while addressing a rally at Salboni in West Midnapore district, where the attack on Abhishek Banerjee's convoy took place on Friday evening, accused BJP of trying to create Manipur-like situation in West Bengal through caste-violence by instigating the Kurmis against the other tribal communities.
At the same time senior Kurmi leaders like Alit Mahato and Sunman Mahato have threatened to go for bigger agitations in the state in case of any stringent police action against the members of the community and their leaders over the attack on the convoy.
Meanwhile, 15 persons have been named in the FIR filed by the state police in connection with the attack on the convoy. Mahato was one of the 15 named in the FIR.
Political observer apprehend that this Kurmi movement is all slated to be permanent headache for the state administration and the ruling Trinamool Congress as already Kurmi movement in West Bengal has started spreading beyond the traditional belts in the Junglemahal area scattered over the three tribal-dominated districts of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.
The main grievance of the people of the Kurmi community is that the West Bengal Cultural Research Institute, a state government body that works for indigenous tribes, is yet to recognise the Kurmis as representatives of primitive tribes. They also allege that the reluctance of the institute or the state government to send a comprehensive report in the matter to the Union government is holding back the process of recognition of the Kurmi community under the Scheduled Tribe category.
On April 11, there was a bipartite meeting between the leaders of the community and the state government at the state secretariat of Nabanna. However, the meeting failed to evoke any positive result. On that day only, the Kurmi leaders had threatened to go ahead with their agitation.
(With inputs from IANS)
